NEWS ARCHIVE

Continuous road construction negatively impacts local business

A small business owner said the construction on Highway 370 is diverting customers and ruining his business.

Continuous road construction negatively impacts local business

Share

Shares

Copy Link

{copyShortcut} to copy
Link copied!

Updated: 10:39 PM CDT Aug 27, 2013

GRETNA, Neb. —

Nebraska state officials promised the end is near for road construction at Highways 6 and 370 -- words of relief for a small business owner who says the construction is diverting customers.

Bob McKinney, owner of McKinney’s Food Center in Gretna, said the continuous construction has ruined his small business.

Advertisement

McKinney said his business has taken a 35 to 40 percent hit since last November when an important left turn on Highway 370 into his business disappeared.

“People every day say it's so hard to get in here. It's so hard to get out, especially when you're getting off work and you've got more traffic coming in. Getting in and getting out -- it's a nightmare basically handling it,” said McKinney.

McKinney said he brought his concerns to the state, but was unhappy with the response he received.

“Well, maybe they tried to explain it to me, but I've got news for you, it's not in my language, because I didn't understand it. I mean, it just doesn't make sense on what they're doing. When they do decide to put a light here, then, you open up all four directions?” said McKinney.

7 Can Help called the Nebraska Department of Roads to get a better understanding of the project for McKinney. Afterward, the department gave McKinney an update on the construction, promising the left turn would be accessible by Sept. 6.

“Well, you know, I don’t know if I can believe it. I've been lied to for well over a year on what's going to happen. Nothing they've told me has been exactly true,” McKinney said.

McKinney said it will be nice to have the left turn back, but there won’t be the stop light he had hoped for.

Vala’s Pumpkin Patch was also impacted by the construction. Owner Tim Vala said it wasn’t what he hoped for either.

“We just thought it'd be safer to have a longer left turn lane, and we requested that both verbally and in writing, and unfortunately, it's just a standard-size left turn lane. Nothing extra there,” said Vala.

State engineer Tim Weander said there has been some unavoidable inconvenience at the left turn into McKinney’s Food Center, but he said the in-town construction was saved for last to try to minimize it.

Weander said they did the best they could to work with local businesses.